They drove me to the airstrip at dawn. The plane waited on the tarmac like a mechanical beast daring me to climb aboard. My palms went slick. The smell of jet fuel twisted my stomach.
“You all right?” the escort asked.
I swallowed hard. “Not yet.”
He handed me headphones. “These can help block out the noise.”
I hesitated but eventually took them. The engines roared, the plane lifted, and for a heartbeat, the panic almost won. But through it I heard Reeves’s voice, calm and sure:You don’t have to earn it.
When I woke again, the sky outside the window was softer, humid—the kind of air you could taste. Stateside. The escort helped me through the terminal, into a government SUV, and an hour later I was standing on a porch I barely recognized.
The door opened slowly. My mother blinked at me through a haze of last night’s whiskey, makeup smeared, hair a mess. For a second I thought she might slam the door, like maybe I was just another hallucination.
Then she laughed. Or maybe she sobbed. Hard to tell the difference. “You’re not real,” she said, voice small and cracked. “They brought me a flag. They said you were gone.”
“I got lost,” I managed.
Her eyes filled, and she reached for me with shaking hands. The hug was clumsy, half-hearted, like muscle memory instead of love. Behind her, the house smelled of liquor and lemon cleaner, the mix of a woman trying to drown one scent with another.
The escort gave me a nod, climbed back into the SUV, and drove off. The silence that followed felt heavier than gunfire.
I stood there a minute, letting her talk—rambling about neighbors, the VA, some check she never cashed. I looked at the photos on the wall: me in uniform, her younger and sober, people I didn’t remember. Everything frozen in time.
The quiet pressed too close. The air felt stale. My chest started to ache again. Home, but not home.
The place I needed to be was still a few miles south. An old clubhouse, engines rumbling, laughter spilling through opendoors, a girl with fire in her eyes who once made me promise I’d come back. I set my pack down beside the couch, stared at my hands, and whispered the same words that had carried me across three months of hell.
Got to get home.
Chapter Thirty-Three
? Jackson ?
I spent a grand total of maybe six hours with my mom before I was crawling out of my skin. She eventually fell asleep on the couch and I snuck out the door. I suddenly hated the rickety old steps as they wobbled under my weight. But eventually, I found myself in front of the little shed back behind the house. I wasn’t sure who groaned louder, me or the door, but eventually, I got the damn thing open.
Inside, my bike waited. Someone had cleaned it. The chrome caught the morning light, tank full, chain oiled. Diego’s handiwork, no doubt. The sight hit me harder than the desert sun ever had. I gripped the handlebar, felt the smooth leather under my fingers, the faint tremor in my leg screamingdon’t even think about it.
“Yeah, not today,” I muttered, but still, I leaned the cane against the workbench and propped myself carefully up next to the familiar machine. The silence pressed in. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I didn’t even own a phone anymore. No wallet, no car. I was a ghost trying to rejoin the living. I was sure they had sent Mom my things, but the chances of her having any idea where she had stashed it was slim to none.
So I did the only thing that made sense—I grabbed my cane and hobbled across the gravel to knock on the neighbor’s door.
Old man Carter opened the door, wearing a fishing hat and an expression somewhere between heart attack and ghost sighting. “Jackson?”
“Hey, Mr. Carter. Sorry to bother you. Can I borrow your phone?”
Carter blinked. “They said—you were—”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know.”
The man finally stepped aside. “Phone’s on the counter.”
I ordered an Uber to the only address that mattered. When he handed the phone back, Carter was still staring. “Thanks,” I muttered, not meeting his wide eyes.
“Anytime,” came out on autopilot, the man still frozen in the doorway as I limped back down the steps.
Back outside, the air smelled like honeysuckle and rain. I eased myself down onto the front step, cane across my lap, and waited. The Uber driver pulled up in a dented Camry, chewing gum and glancing at me in the mirror every few seconds like she was afraid I was a ghost she had picked up and was trying to make sure I didn’t vanish.
When the car turned into the long gravel drive, my throat went dry. The Steel Saints sign stood proud on the siding, weathered but unbroken. The main bay door was half open; sunlight spilled across concrete scarred by years of oil and tread marks.
